Amanda Gorman, whose recitation of a poem about the country’s progress on issues of race and equality in the possession of President Biden took her to the national scene, said on Friday that she was followed by a security guard who questioned whether she lived in her own building .
Gorman, 22, who grew up near Westchester, wrote on Twitter on Friday that the guard had “followed” her as she walked home, then asked if she actually lived in her building. “You look suspicious,” said the guard, according to Gorman.
Gorman said that she showed the guard her keys and entered the building. “He left, without excuse,” she wrote. “This is the reality of black girls: one day you are called an icon, the next day a threat.”
Gorman did not immediately return a message sent through his website seeking comments.
Gorman, who attended New Roads School in Santa Monica, became the first young laureate poet in Los Angeles at the age of 16. She was recognized as a nationally awarded poet three years later, while studying at Harvard University.
The youngest poet to speak in a presidential inauguration, Gorman recited the poem “The Hill We Climb” in Biden’s oath, just two weeks after a crowd of supporters of former President Trump violated the US Capitol in a violent attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
Gorman describes himself in the poem as “a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother”, but one who “can dream of becoming president”.
She has two future books – a poetry collection and a children’s book – that will be published by Penguin Random House in September, according to its website.